vicki hess
Vicki Hess, RN, MS is your go-to resource for transforming employee engagement at the individual, departmental or organizational level. As the author of 4 books, Vicki inspires clients to take action. Organizations that implement Vicki’s ideas experience increased productivity, safety, quality, retention, client satisfaction, creativity and more. A highly-regarded speaker, author, facilitator and consultant, Vicki shares her expertise in employee engagement as well as workforce and leadership development with healthcare organizations across the country. She has more than 30 years of hands-on business and healthcare experience that she draws upon to provide inspirational and evidence-based strategies for workplace engagement. Read More.
martha whitecotton
Martha Whitecotton is the Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health Services for Atrium Health. In this role, Ms. Whitecotton is responsible for strategic development, execution and oversight for the Behavioral Health Service Line across all care settings as well as physician services. Prior to her current role, Ms. Whitecotton held a variety of leadership roles within Atrium Health. Most recently, she served as president of Levine Children’s Hospital where she led the strategic development of three key programs: the Congenital Heart Center, the Pediatric Inpatient Rehabilitation, and the Pediatric Blood and Marrow transplant program. Read More.
karen valencic
Always ahead of the curve, Karen Valencic develops leaders and teams to engage through the phases of cutting-edge innovation – making it fun and profound. By design, her Spiral Impact method keeps her clients a head of the curve. Karen’s extensive work in hospitals and healthcare companies makes her a favorite speaker at healthcare related conferences. For over two decades she has worked deeply with individuals and teams at all levels including: Physician groups, OR and Sterile Process, Oncology, Accounting, Finance, Construction, Facilities, Clinical Engineering, Chaplaincy, Nurse Recruiting, Nursing, Telemetry, Hospice, Community Clinics and many other direct patient care teams. Read More.
nancy sharp
Nancy Sharp is an award-winning author and nationally recognized speaker on resilience and making bold change. She never set out to change people’s lives, but the hard experience of early widowhood led her on a journey of resilience to doing just that. Today, she draws upon her story of loss, adversity, and the power of choice--along with proven research, her innovative Resilience Framework™, and a variety of practical tools—to help individuals, teams, and organizations push beyond disruption toward growth and change. Read More.
Zeev Neuwirth
Dr. Neuwirth was appointed Senior Medical Director of Population Health for the Carolinas Healthcare System (CHS) in November 2016. In this newly created position within CHS, he serves as the senior most physician responsible for advancing the system’s value focused strategies and transitioning the delivery system toward a consumer-oriented, value based model of care. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Neuwirth served as the Senior Medical Director for Primary Care Services within CHS, which proactively provides primary medical care to over 1.1 million patients, and serves a community of over 2 million people in the greater Charlotte area. He was responsible for leading the redesign of the Primary Care ecosystem at CHS and also served as an executive leader in Population Health, Care Management, Retail Care & Virtual Medicine. Prior to joining CHS, Zeev served as Chief of Clinical Effectiveness & Innovation at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a 600 physician multi-specialty practice located in Eastern Massachusetts. Read More.
Peter Neffenger
Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger, Managing Principal of Neffenger Consulting, took the helm of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2015, in the aftermath of much publicized DHS screening test failures and the ensuing media and public outcry. Trusted by the White House because of his work as the Deputy National Incident Commander for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Peter recruited an executive team from diverse military, intelligence and federal backgrounds, and redefined the core security mission of this $7B agency, with 50,000+ frontline officers. His transformation of the TSA earned it wide-spread recognition as the turnaround agency of the year. This powerful internal culture shift had significant impact upon the nation’s 450+ airports and the two million people who travel through them daily, establishing Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) as vital contributors to our country’s national security. Read More.
Josh Linkner
Josh Linkner – who started his career as a jazz guitarist – personifies innovation, entrepreneurship, and breakthrough disruption. He has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. Josh is a New York Times Bestselling author, and an internationally recognized expert on innovation and applied creativity. His first book, Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity (2011), become one of the most definitive works on the topic of innovation, and has since been published in 13 languages. His other two books, The Road to Reinvention: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation (2014), and Hacking Innovation: The New Growth Model from the Sinister World of Hackers (2017), have both received critical acclaim and have pushed the boundaries of business leaders worldwide. Read More.
ben nemtin
Ben Nemtin and his three childhood friends started THE BURIED LIFE in Victoria, BC in 2006. They made a list of ‘100 things to do before you die’ and for every list item they accomplished, they helped a complete stranger cross something off their bucket list. Since then, they have crossed off ‘Write a #1 New York Times Bestselling Book’, ‘Make a TV Show (on MTV)’, ‘Be Interviewed by Oprah’ and have helped reunite a father and son after seventeen years and surprised a young girl with a much needed bionic arm. Ben and his friends have crossed off 91 of 100 dreams and are currently filming The Buried Life documentary film. Read More.
Apurv Gupta
Dr. Apurv Gupta is a Director in the Performance Excellence Practice at Navigant Consulting based in Boston. Apurv is a leader and innovator in healthcare, an expert in performance improvement and change management, and a thought leader in the transofrmation of healthcare. He provides assessment and implementation services for healthcare organizations, with a particular emphasis on engagement of clinicians, mentoring of physician leaders, and alignment of executive leadership to improve clinical practices in addressing quality, supply utilization, and cost issues. Apurv has redesigned numerous hospitalist programs to improve productivity, increase physician engagement, and install sustainable governance. Read More.
Karma Bass
Before founding Via Healthcare Consulting, she worked with ACCORD LIMITED, a Chicago-based consulting firm serving clients nationwide with their strategic planning, governance, speaking and board retreats. She spent two years as president and CEO of Alliance Healthcare Foundation in San Diego, California where she reported to an independent, eleven-person not-for-profit board. Notably, Ms. Bass spent 10 years at The Governance Institute holding various positions including Vice President, Membership Services and Director of Research & Publications. During her time at The Governance Institute, she oversaw the prestigious biennial hospital governance practices survey tracking trends in US hospitals and health systems. Read More.
Lean Wen
Dr. Leana Wen is an emergency physician, public health leader, and a passionate advocate for patient-centered healthcare reform. The author of the critically-acclaimed book, When Doctors Don’t Listen, her TED talk on transparency in medicine has been viewed over 2 million times. In 2019, Dr. Wen was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. Currently a Visiting Professor of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University Milken School of Public Health, Dr. Wen is also the Distinguished Fellow at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity. Previously, Dr. Wen served as the Health Commissioner for the City of Baltimore, where she led the nation’s oldest continuously operating health department in the U.S., founded in 1793, with 1,000 employees committed to improving well-being and combatting disparities. Read More.
Mike Lee
Bridging his background in basketball leadership and performance — training some of basketball’s 1% — with mindfulness and emotional intelligence, Mike helps high-performing leaders master the psychology needed to lead and perform in a 2020 world. Through his experience building an international basketball brand from his college apartment, and growing it while beating the heroin-like withdrawal symptoms of pharmaceutical medication, Mike understands the challenges leaders face. Read More.